1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a coin processing device used in vending machines, money exchangers, service devices, etc., and designed to sort and store inserted coins by denomination and dispense as change the coins so sorted and stored.
2. Description of the Related Art
Vending machines, money exchangers, service devices, and so forth are equipped with coin processing devices for sorting and storing inserted coins by denomination and dispensing these sorted and stored coins as change.
Broadly classified, such coin processing devices consist of the following four sections.
(1) A device main body constituting the cabinet of the coin processing device.
(2) A coin sorting component, located in the uppermost portion of the device main body, for determining whether inserted coins are genuine and sorting genuine coins by denomination.
(3) A coin storage component, located within the device main body below the coin sorting component and comprising a plurality of coin tubes for stacking and storing by denomination genuine coins that have been sorted by denomination by the coin sorting component.
(4) A coin dispensing component, located within the device main body below the coin storage component, for dispensing as change those coins stored in the coin storage component.
Vending machines equipped with coin processing devices of this construction are designed such that when a product purchaser, having inserted coins in order to purchase a product, subsequently decides for some reason to cancel the product purchase and wants the coins to be returned, a coin return lever provided to the vending machine may be operated.
At this point, the coin processing device returns coins of the same value as the inserted coins through a coin return slot, so that the product purchaser desiring return of the inserted coins may recover the returned coins from the coin return slot.
With a typical coin processing device as described above, this coin return is accomplished by operation of the coin return lever, which causes the coin dispensing component to dispense coins of the same value as the inserted coins from the coin storage component to the coin return slot.
Specifically, when inserted coins are returned by a conventional coin processing device, the coins inserted by the product purchaser are not themselves dispensed at the coin return slot, but rather coins equal in value to the inserted value are dispensed at the coin return slot from among genuine coins already stored in the coin storage component.
Accordingly, when inserted coins are returned with a conventional coin processing device, the coins actually inserted are not dispensed, but rather coins of the same value as the inserted coins are dispensed from among coins already stored in the coin storage component, so if a skillfully-made counterfeit coin good enough to pass as genuine in the coin sorting component is inserted into the coin processing device, and if the coin return lever is then operated without a product being purchased, then even though the inserted coin is counterfeit, a genuine coin equal in value to the inserted amount will be dispensed to the coin return slot. This is known as xe2x80x9ccoin switching.xe2x80x9d
In order to prevent this coin switching, there has been proposed in the past, as disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application H11-288480, a coin processing device in which a coin detaining lever is provided at the downstream end of a coin sorting passage having a plurality of denomination sorting levers for sorting by denomination coins considered to be genuine, that is, at the downstream end of the coin passage in which coins are ultimately sorted and guided by denomination, and an inserted coin is temporarily detained by this coin detaining lever, so that if the coin return lever is operated without a product being purchased, the inserted coin temporarily detained by the coin detaining lever will be released and the inserted coin dispensed from the coin return slot. This is known as an xe2x80x9cactual coin return type of coin processing device.xe2x80x9d
With the actual coin return type coin processing device disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application H11-288480, when the coin return lever is operated and a coin returned, the coin actually inserted is itself dispensed, so even if a skillfully-made counterfeit coin good enough to pass as genuine in the coin sorting component is inserted, the inserted (counterfeit) coin will itself be dispensed at the coin return slot, so coin switching is effectively thwarted.
Furthermore, in addition to the above-mentioned device disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application H11-288480, in the past there was a device with which, in the event that a plurality of high-denomination coins were temporarily detained in the coin passage (according the length thereof) and the return lever was operated without a product being purchased, the plurality of temporarily detained coins were returned to the coin return slot.
Conventional coin processing devices therefore do effectively prevent coin switching, as with the actual coin return type coin processing device disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application H11-288480.
However, the use of counterfeit coins per se cannot be prevented, and therefore a new-type 500-yen coin was issued that is more difficult to counterfeit.
Consequently, both the old 500-yen coin and the new-type 500-yen coin are being in circulation together, but since the old 500-yen coin is easier to counterfeit, all of the old 500-yen coins have to be recovered in order to end their use and prevent the counterfeiting of these old 500-yen coins.
However, old 500-yen coins cannot be recovered with conventional coin processing devices, such as the coin processing device disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application H11-288480, which is a problem in that the use of old 500-yen coins cannot be prevented.
Of conventional coin processing devices, some employed a so-called xe2x80x9ctube-remaining systemxe2x80x9d. In this system, the number of coins that can be stored in each coin tube of the coin storage component could be set as desired. With this tube-remaining type of coin processing device, the number of coins kept on hand as change in the coin tubes can be reduced, and in particular, the number of high-denomination coins that are stored can be kept to a minimum as dictated by the set prices for the vending machine unit, which minimizes losses in the event that the coin processing device should malfunction due to vandals using a stun-gun or a radio transmitter, for example.
With these conventional tube-remaining type coin processing devices, full-detecting sensors for the coin tubes in which the various coins are stored are usually disposed according to the intended storage numbers set for each coin tube, and when the number of coins stored in a coin tube reaches this set storage number, the coin tube is considered to be full and any further inserted coins are stored in a cashbox.
Meanwhile, another conventional coin processing device is equipped with a lever that ordinarily guides coins to coin tubes that make up the coin storage component when these coin tubes are not full, but engages the stored coins and guides them to a cashbox when the coin tubes are full. This lever is known as a block-out lever. With a conventional coin processing device equipped with such a block-out lever, the block-out lever is designed to engage the stored coins when a coin tube is full, so a problem is that the above-mentioned tube-remaining system cannot be employed.
As discussed above, it is desirable with a coin processing device to prevent coin switching and also to set the number of high-denomination coins stored as change in the coin tubes as low as possible in order to minimize losses in the event of vandalism with a stun-gun or the like, but the actual coin return type of coin processing device disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application H11-288480 is constructed such that a temporarily detained high-denomination coin is merely stored in a coin tube after a product has been purchased, so more high-denomination coins than necessary are stored in the coin tubes, and consequently, if the coin processing device should malfunction due to vandals using a stun-gun or the like, these high-denomination coins will be dispensed and a tremendous loss incurred.
A first object of the invention is to provide a coin processing device that prevents the use of old-type coins as much as possible for the sake of recovering these old-type coins.
A second object of the invention is to provide a coin processing device that employs a so-called tube-remaining system.
A third object of the invention is to provide a coin processing device designed such that coin switching is prevented as much as possible when a plurality of coins are being temporarily detained, and the number of coins stored in the coin storage component after temporary detention can be set as desired.
To achieve the first object above, the first invention is a coin processing device comprising coin identification means for identifying whether inserted coins are genuine and for identifying the denominations of the genuine coins, a plurality of denomination sorting means for sorting inserted coins identified as genuine into different coin passages on the basis of their denomination, coin detaining means disposed downstream from the different coin passages, for temporarily detaining the coins guided to the different coin passages, and coin storage means consisting of a plurality of coin tubes disposed downstream from the coin detaining means, for stacking and storing the coins that drop out of the coin detaining means, further comprising first sorting means disposed downstream from the coin detaining means, for sorting the coins temporarily detained by the coin detaining means into a return passage and the coin storage means, and second sorting means disposed downstream from the first sorting means, for further the coins sorted by the first sorting means into the coin storage means into the coin storage means and a cashbox.
To achieve the first and second objects above, the second invention is a coin processing device comprising coin identification means for identifying whether inserted coins are genuine and for identifying the denominations of the genuine coins, a plurality of denomination sorting means for sorting coins identified as genuine into different coin passages on the basis of their denomination, coin detaining means disposed downstream from the different coin passages, for temporarily detaining the coins guided to the different coin passages, and coin storage means consisting of a plurality of coin tubes disposed downstream from the coin detaining means, for stacking and storing the coins that drop out of the coin detaining means, further comprising first sorting means disposed downstream from the coin detaining means, for sorting the coins temporarily detained by the coin detaining means into a return passage and the coin storage means, and second sorting means disposed downstream from the first sorting means, for further sorting the coins sorted by the first sorting means into the coin storage means into the coin storage means and a cashbox, said second sorting means comprising a block-out lever with which coins that have been sorted into the coin storage means by the first sorting means are guided to the cashbox if the coin storage means overflows, and said block-out lever being operated by a solenoid.
To achieve the third object above, the third invention is a coin processing device comprising coin identification means for identifying whether inserted coins are genuine and for identifying the denominations of the genuine coins, a plurality of denomination sorting means for sorting inserted coins identified as genuine into different coin passages on the basis of their denomination, coin detaining means disposed downstream from the different coin passages, for temporarily detaining a plurality of coins guided to the different coin passages, and coin storage means consisting of a plurality of coin tubes disposed downstream from the coin detaining means, for stacking and storing the coins that drop out of the coin detaining means, the coin detaining means consisting of a coin detaining lever that intermittently drops the plurality of coins it detains one at a time, a first coin sorting lever with which the coins dropped one at a time by the coin detaining lever are sorted into a return passage and the coin storage means being provided downstream from the coin detaining means, and a second coin sorting lever with which the coins sorted into the coin storage means by the first coin sorting lever are sorted into the coin storage means and a cashbox being provided downstream from the first coin sorting lever.
Other objects and effects of the present invention can be easily confirmed from the following detailed description and the appended figures.